Feeling shocked after hearing disturbing news about someone from school

[FriendlyNPC]

I found out a few months ago that a boy I went to school with was caught with indecent images of children, it was in the paper and my sibling still lives locally so told me.

He's recently been sentenced, and it was so much worse than initially thought.
I don't really want to describe what, but basically since I read the update I feel sick. We weren't close or anything, but we were friendly, and I feel so disgusting to know.

Not really after anything other than just needing to get it out. I feel a bit pathetic for feeling so physically ill about it. It's not about me. I haven't even seen him in 20 years. But I feel filthy by association, you know. Shocked.

That's it. Thanks for reading.

I’m afraid we have no way of knowing which men are a risk to children. I remember feeling completely blindsided when a good friend told me that she had discovered that her then H had been sexually abusing her teenage DD. I’d thought he was a nice guy and had encouraged her to go for it after her previous husband had left her for her next door neighbour.

I’m a CSA survivor, so the whole thing left me feeling really sick and triggered, and feeling really guilty that I hadn’t had any suspicions of him at all. Nobody did.

Yes it feels more scary somehow when you know the person. My ex was arrested for grooming and sexual relations with a minor. He treated me horribly when we were together but I don’t think I ever would have guessed this and it made me feel physically ill.

It feels worse knowing he got away with it and his current wife stayed with him. It just made me questions the morals of so many people.

When I was a teenager I organised house parties whenever I was home alone. My friends would often bring their friend who was a year younger than us. We're all in our 30s now. A few years ago I read that he killed his friend and his 7 year old son (a witness to his dad's murder) with a hammer. I felt the same as you. I couldn't believe I invited that person to my house. It's just the initial shock and I came to terms with it after a few months

I know how you feel. Some years ago I was told by a colleague that another colleague’s son had been charged with similar. He was banged up for a long time.

None of us ever spoke about it to his mother but she must have been aware than we knew. He was simply never mentioned at all.

A family member is currently in prison for abusing his step daughter. He got a sentence of 22 years. The partner knew it was going on 😯😡 His parents and sister stood by him 😡😡😡

It really takes you by surprise doesn't it. Somebody I went to school with became a paediatric doctor and then inappropriately touched a child 😬it was all over the news it’s scary!

Thing is it’s not just men, there’s been two teachers in the news lately that have had sexual relations with students! I think it’s hard to trust annyone anymore!

One of my best friend's son was caught with indecent images. He was always a bit "different " - dressed quite alternatively and had very long hair whereas his family were quite conservative but I wouldn't havd suspected he was doing anything like that.

He is never mentioned when we're together. I wonder if some of their church people or other friends have shunned them as we live in quite a gossipy, judgemental place.

I used to know someone who was done for having images of children. There was something odd about him but I'd never have guessed he'd be done for something like this

Our old ice cream man was a nonce. As was the eldest son of one of my parents friends my bit went to jail.

i probably have known many more who’ve just not been caught.

They hide really well. The first I knew my exh was one was when the police raided my home. He became my ex that day. We were together 20plus years and I had no idea. We had children but thankfully his disgusting behaviour was limited to online and he never touched them.

I had feelings of guilt and shame for a long time. Sadly I still get shunned by people as they assumed I must have known and some how facilitated it. I only knew the full truth of what he was doing when it came out in court.

was good friends with a couple for 5 years, spent loads of time together, our kids were best friends and I honestly would have said the guy was one of the few people I truly trusted. He was one of my favourite people. Turns out hes a fucking creep bordering on pedophile- no criminal charges raised but enough evidence that he can only have supervised contact with his kids. Its all horrific

Just honestly why on earth is an adult man sexually attracted to a child? It's totally beyond my comprehension.

That Brass Eye comedian in the early 2000s taking the mick out of people being obsessed with paedophiles around their children rings rather hollow now doesn’t it. Actually the “paranoid” mums weren’t the ones being unreasonable.

they do not go round with a stamp on their head so you never know who does what. you might have been a friend but thank the stars you were not the mans partner.

I once worked in a small family hotel (roughly 25 rooms?) for a few weeks. Nice people, elderly father and mother owned it and still worked in it, and two sons were desk and restaurant managers. I did a mix of reception work and bar work, basically an "extra pair of hands" for busy times, so I'd do a few hours mid day then go back and do a few hours in the evening, so basically a zero-hour contract - some days several hours, other days nothing. The desk manager son, I thought, was really nice, always friendly and chatty. We almost got to the "flirty" stage and I think he was close to asking me out, which I'd have accepted.

Anyway, before that happened, I got offered another job which was fixed full time hours, which I accepted as the zero hours/casual/unsocial hours nature of the hotel job didn't really suit me. I did my final shift, went and never really gave it much thought. (Except for wistfully wondering why the son hadn't asked me out which I soon forgot).

Years later in the local paper, shocked to see a picture of the son, who'd been in court accused of rape, underaged sex with minors, literally thousands of indecent images of children found on his computers and hard drives, and was imprisoned for several years.

What a lucky escape! You really can't tell who are the deviants and who are the normal ones. There was literally nothing to suggest he was a sexual predator, he never laid a finger on me whilst working side by side with him, always acted a perfect gentlemen, not even any lewd jokey comments! I'd never have thought it of him.

I can think of 3 separate men/ groups known to me and my family. One was a local minister in a very evangelical church, one was a local church goer, divorced, complained his wife wouldn't let him see his children. He was very charming and always offering to do odd jobs and so on. Classic really in the way he inveigled his way into making friends with parents of small children.
Another group involved a vicar and a minor tv personality.
You can't trust anyone.

I don't think this has ever really been answered. For obvious reasons, trying to study large numbers of paedophiles is difficult and human sexuality and paraphilias are already complex enough. There's theories that it's due to past trauma / suffering abuse themselves as children, there's theories that it's more innate and some sort of disorder, then there are other groups for whom it's suggested ever-more-extreme pornography rewires them to chasing more and more horrifying content.

Given the sheer numbers involved, it does raise the question of how much is actually built-in to us as a species. It's quite clearly not the odd, extremely rare outlier.

Unfortunately this is a lot more common than you think.

Believe me, they're all over.
I worked in a police role for nearly 30 years.
One of the men l worked closely with was imprisoned for child abuse (none of us had any idea) and prior to that, a senior officer I knew took his own life after being found in possession of child abuse images.
During a conversation about a news item about child abusers, one of my friends who is far from stupid, (she's run two very successful businesses) but in some ways incredibly naive, said "Oh, but that's not here, is it? That's in London."
This woman has adult children and young grandchildren.
The naivety and disassociation by some people is terrifying.

Sadly it's everywhere. Found out last year that one of my neighbours (6 doors down) had been sentenced due to downloading indecent images of children, his wife has stood by him. My friends on the other side to them were devastated, they were friendly with this couple and had even gone on holiday with them, they had zero idea he was like this.

We also found out this year that one of dh's school friends, (we all still live in the same area) has been housing his 27 year old, paedophile son. His son was married with children (those poor kids and wife) and his dad is housing him as part of his probation conditions. They live on the same road as a primary school and locals have gone mad.

Makes you wonder just how many are living nearby?

It happened with my ex boyfriend’s older brother a few years ago, about a year after we broke up. He was caught in a police sting thinking he was talking to and arranging to meet a 12 year old. Then they found loads of cat A images and that he’d previously met children under the age of 13.

It really shook me at the time because my ex hated him. Despised him and refused to be in the same room as him. It made me wonder if he’d done something to him (he was 5 years older) or if he knew what he was up to. They look so similar and have the same surname so loads of people kept forwarding me the article.

It’s scary to know you’ve been in that close proximity as someone and not knowing what they are but as many pp have said, unfortunately these people are everywhere. I’ve seen a few people I went to school with be sentenced for the same thing. People I’ve bumped into out and about when I’ve been back in my hometown who were seemingly nice, normal guys too. They walk among us every day.

It must be upsetting/horrfying to if you turned out to be like that. These people can't help feeling like they do. No excuse of course. I wonder what, if anything, can be done to eliminate these perversions? Chemical castration?

There was a teacher at DCs convent secondary school. Late fifties, married with adult children.

DC and I all liked him. I once wrote him a card to say thank you for being very kind to my DC when they were upset about something on a residential trip.

Not long after DC left the school this teacher was caught upskirting. When the police investigated he had 1000s of these images stored. Obviously no one was identifiable (thank god), but the obvious assumption is that most of them would have been girls at the school where he had worked.

It went to court but at that time upskirting was a new phenomenon so wasn't technically illegal.

Due to their personalities and stuff they usually have to be extremely charming which is why it’s missed so luch